


In a Crooked Little Town

by TradeMark_Deception



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gang Violence, Gangsters, Hitmen, Insanity, Minor Character Death, Multi, Reverse Cops and Robbers au, black market, criminals, prisons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 06:01:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2139750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TradeMark_Deception/pseuds/TradeMark_Deception
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard being a detective.  It's harder when you're trying to catch a serial killer whose a lot smarter than you thought.  Now your brother is trying to find a contract killer who has gone missing and the only to get information is for him to visit the serial killer Jake English.  And it just so happens your brother was the one who arrested Jake English.</p><p>Your name is Dave Strider, and something's wrong with everything, your brother, your sister, your aunt, your co-workers.  And no one seems to tell you the truth anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sleep and the Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> This is an au based off one my friend created expect this version is reversed. In this, the Prospit dreamers are criminals and the Derse dreamers are on the side of the law. I thought it would be interesting... Okay I'll shut up now.

Your name is Dave Strider and all you want is to go home right now.  But you know that’s not going to happen any time soon, after all you just caught a serial killer that doubled as a drug dealer.  That means Roxy is going to take you and all your other siblings out for drinks to celebrate.  On a normal day, you’d be all for a cold one at the bar but today was not a normal day.

Even though you did catch the infamous Gamzee Makara today, two bodies showed up on the south side of town.  They were killed by none other than the legendary “John Doe” as dubbed by the press.  You knew “John Doe” killed them because next to the corpses, written in their blood was the word “John”.  That was the creep’s signature.

In short, you don’t want to go celebrate because really you haven’t accomplished anything in your mind.  You have been working on the “John Doe” case for almost a year now and you haven’t progressed at all.  You thought when started the case that the guy would slip up and leave some kind of evidence.  Damn, were you wrong.  The guy leaves no evidence behind at all, the only thing he leaves behind is his signature and trail of bodies.

You sigh and lean back your chair.  You really want to go home.  Your siblings think you want to go home and sleep, they can keep thinking that.  They don’t need to know that you stay up for hours trying to find something that will help your case.  You really are thankful your shades hide the circles under your eyes.

“Davey!  You ready to go?”

You blink as your older sister Roxy comes barreling towards you.

You send her a soft smile before replying, “Sorry, Roxy.  I’m not really feeling it today.”

Her eyes soften but she still smiles and helps you out of your chair.  She throws her arm over your shoulders and pokes you softly in the ribs, “Hey, don’t beat yourself up over John Doe, we’ll catch him.”

And with that, she takes her leave and heads over to your younger sister Rose and your older brother Dirk.  Dirk looks at you passively, but you can _feel_ the sympathy coming from him.  Out of all your four siblings, he’s the only one who probably understands what you’re putting yourself through.  After all, he did spend almost a year and half looking for Jake English, a serial killer who beat his victims to death.

But, unlike you, Dirk actually managed to catch Jake English and get him put away for life.

You’d be lucky if you could find out anything on “John Doe” besides the word “John”.  Hell, you don’t even know the creep’s gender, name, age, height, hair color, or anything.  All you have is the word “John” and a pile of bodies in autopsy.

You watch three of your four siblings leave the station.  You sigh and start heading towards the chief’s office.  And it just so happens that the chief is your oldest brother, Broderick Strider.

Most of your family works at the station, the only exceptions being your father, Davion Strider, your mother, Rosaline Lalonde, your aunt, Roxanne Lalonde, and your sister, Rose Lalonde.  Granted your father is a detective like you and Dirk, but he works for a private detective agency.  Your mother and Rose work at a jail of the criminally insane as therapists, the same jail Jake English is at (Dirk wasn’t too happy about that).  And your aunt is barista at the bar Derse, which you and family go to all the time.

You walk straight into Bro’s office, and, in the process, interrupt a conversation between Bro and you father.  Well so much for your plan, you were going to try and play it off as nothing important but you cringed when they looked at you.  Now they know something’s up because if there’s anything your father and brothers taught you, it was to always act stoic.  You just blew it.

Bro looks at you and asks, “What’s up little man?”

You open your mouth but say nothing as your father starts walking towards you.  Before you can react, your father is standing next to Bro holding your shades.

Bro sighs, “That explains it.”

You glare at them, “What does that mean?”

Your father and Bro exchange looks before Bro speaks up, “You know Dirk was the same way when he was looking for English.  But you wanna know how he finally found that bastard?”

You raise your eyebrows, you can’t help but be curious considering Dirk never talks about English.

“He actually got some fucking sleep.”

“Fuck you!  I can function perfectly fine without some sleep!”

Bro sighs and your father just sits down on the corner of Bro’s desk.  He picks up a stapler and tosses it back and forth in his hands before looking at you.

“Come here.”

Reluctantly you begin dragging yourself towards your father.  You haven’t even taken three steps yet and all of a sudden the stapler leaves your father’s hands and hits you square in the shoulder.

“What the hell?!”

Your father clicks his tongue, “Your reflexes suck, go home and sleep.  You need it.  And second off, you look like the walking dead.”

“I don’t doubt that…” you mutter under your breath.

Your father walks over and hands you your shades and the keys to your house.  Alright, so you live with your brothers, you admit, but honestly you all work at the same place so it saves time and money.  That, and you really can’t afford your own place.

You put your shades back on and begin leaving Bro’s office.  But before you’re out the door, you turn to Bro ask, “Why the hell do we have keys anyways?  The door’s always unlocked.”

Bro just shrugs.

Why are the doors always unlocked?  Simple.  Because everyone knows better than to fuck with a Strider.  That’s why.

When you get home, you immediately flop onto your couch and turn on the TV.  The news comes on first and before you change the channel, a news report catches your attention.  They’re talking about John Doe.  You almost laugh at how over dramatic the whole thing is.  Yes, it is a big deal that there is a serial killer on the loose, but they don’t need to this dramatic about it.

You don’t even listen to the whole story and just change the channel to some crappy soap opera which you couldn’t care less about.  With the living room now filled with the sounds of sex and arguments over who some blonde chick slept with, you leave your place on the couch in favor of frozen pizza and apple juice.

After you finish eating, you turn off the TV and turn on some music.  There weren’t too many things could calm your nerves but music always did the trick.  It didn’t matter if it was music you mixed yourself or something on your Pandora, music just helped.

You walk over to the couch, pull up the cushion and pull out the John Doe files you may or may not have taken from the station.  You spend almost three full hours rereading the same files you’ve been reading for the past four weeks.  And you know what you found?  Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

You take off your shades and rub your eyes with your thumbs.  You’re getting a headache and incredibly frustrated.

And, of course, your phone starts ringing.  You don’t even look at the caller ID, you just answer.

“What?”  you growl into the phone.

“Dude, get some sleep.”

“Thanks _mom_.  You wanna remind to brush my teeth too?”

“If I have to, I will”, is Dirk’s response.  He may be your brother and you have to love him but that doesn’t stop you from wanting to punch him.

You sigh, you know Dirk will bother you until you give in.

“Fine, but, I swear, if you tell Bro or Dad that it took you to get me to actually get some sleep, I will murder you.”

You can hear his smug smirk as he responds, “Won’t dream of it, lil’ man.”

He hangs up.  If he wasn’t your brother, you would hate him.  And the only reason why you’d hate him is because he’s right and he’s knows it.

…

[Seven hours earlier, 14:00]

Your name is Equius Zahhak and you are currently very confused.  You work as a guard at a high profile prison and you are assigned to guard the cell of Jake English.  Normally, nothing really happens, every now and then he’ll ask for some more paper or a new pen, which you give him.  It keeps him busy, it keeps him from trying to do anything foolish.

But today is different.  Today you are checking the ID and the background of a man who claims to be family to Jake English and wants to visit the serial killer.  Honestly, the man doesn’t look to be an adult, he’s short with messy raven hair with a childish energy to him.  But his ID says he’s twenty-six and he’s ID checks out, and his record’s clean minus two parking tickets.

He’s clean, you have to let me in.  You don’t want to, but you cannot deny that you have to let the man visit Jake English because his sentence states that he can have visitors.  It confuses you but you have no choice.

You are about to let man into English’s cell when you notice he’s holding book.  You step in front of him, blocking him from entering the cell.

You hold out your hand expectantly, “May I see the book?”

It comes out more like a command than a question.

The man looks up at you and blinks but he hands you the book.

It’s all the Sherlock Holmes collection.  You flip through some of the pages and notice that the pages are written on.  You glance at the man in front of you.

He speaks up, “It was his favorite book in high school.  He used to write all over the pages when he read it, he thought if he did that he could find out who the criminal was.  I figured he would like to reread it since he’s going to be here for awhile.”

You examine his face, he looks sincere.  You can’t find a pattern in the writings on the pages so you hand it back to the man.  You let him pass into the cell.

English and the man talk for a good hour before the man comes out of the cell.  He looks at you and smiles, “Thank you for letting me visit him, he is family to me.”

He holds out his hand to you, hesitantly you shake his hand.  And with that he leaves.

After awhile you in the window on the door to English’s cell.  Sometimes you watch what he writes or scribbles on all the papers you give him, you never understand any of it but doesn’t stop you from trying to figure it out.

You look in and see English flipping to random pages in the book he was just given.  He flips to a page, stops, writes something on the page of loose leaf you gave him this morning and then goes to another page.

You knew something was up with the book and, even though you know you should take the book from him, you can’t stop watching him decipher the code.

He works at the code for a good twenty minutes before he relaxes in his chair.  You can’t help yourself, you read the page he was writing on.  Your eyes widen at what’s written.

_Three more weeks._

_And you’ll be out of here._

You look at English, he smiles at you.  His smile is unnerving.  He continues to grin as he holds his index finger up to his lips.  He mouths to you, “You better not tell anyone or…”  he drags his finger across his neck for emphasis.

“Zahhak!”  You turn around to see a fellow guard standing away from you.

“Yes?”  You try to sound calm.

“You being transferred to guard Makara instead.”

You nod stiffly.  You’re too anxious to really listen to the other guard.  You knew the man who came to English was suspicious.  But you can’t remember the man’s name.

“Hold on.”  You say to the other guard.  You walk over to your computer and check the history and recent programs.  Nothing.  It’s as if you didn’t even use your computer today.

“Is something wrong?”

You look up, “No.”

You start following the guard down the hall to where they’re holding Gamzee Makara.  Suddenly, you hear a banging, you turn around to see English standing at the window.  He smiles at you and waves.  You shiver unintentionally.

His smile is unnerving.


	2. Dead Gangsters and the "Dead Room"

Your name is Dave Strider, and you swear to God you’re going to kill Dirk in his sleep tonight.  Why?  Because you overslept and he decided it would be funny to wake you up instead of Bro doing it like he usually does.  And that is how you woke up to the sounds of awful porn and some crappy J-pop, and, on top of all that he turned on all the lights in your room and bathroom.

It is kind of your fault for oversleeping, but right now you just don’t give a damn.  And you forgot your shades on your nightstand.

After taking a shower and changing clothes, you head down stairs for breakfast.  Dirk’s already sitting at the table eating a waffle and drinking orange soda, you never understood how he could drink soda so damn _early_.

You pointedly glare at him and he just smirks back at you.

“Sleep good?”

“Go to hell.”

He laughs and tosses you a bottle of apple juice.  He can drink orange soda all day and you can drink apple juice all day.

You open the bottle and take a long drink, still managing to keep a glare on Dirk the whole time.  He looks at you expectantly after your drink.

You maintain your glare and grumble, “You’re still not forgiven.”

You hear a chuckle from behind you and spin around to see Bro standing in front of the toaster.  Honestly, you shouldn’t be surprised that Bro randomly appeared behind you in the kitchen, he’s got that freaky talent and he’s perfecting it for years on you.  It doesn’t bother Dirk, in fact, Dirk can do it too, expect he’s not as good at it.

You, on the other hand, totally lack this ability, however you do have an uncanny knack for knowing precisely what time it is.  And that children, is why Dave Strider doesn’t wear a watch.

You lean against the counter and look between Bro and Dirk when you notice their both drinking orange soda and eating waffles.  You can’t bring yourself to eat breakfast, you never really have eaten breakfast before.

“How are we even related?”

And at the same time they respond with, “Well you see, when a mommy and daddy love each other very much-”

“It’s too early for this shit!  No thank you!”  you interrupt before they can finish.

They just them chuckle as you leave the kitchen.  You head back up to your room to get your shades, you can hear your brothers talking downstairs, and whatever it is they’re talking about Dirk doesn’t sound too happy about it.  You curious, you can’t help yourself, you walk quietly down the stairs until you within earshot of them.

You hear Bro first, “Look, you’re the only one who doesn’t have a case assigned to you already, and you managed to catch English.  You can catch her.”

“There’s a difference between serial killers and contract killers!  _He_ was careless that’s why I caught him.  But no one has found her for over four fucking years!  She’s not dumb!”

You know who they’re talking about.  Jade Harley, contract killer, and that’s not the worse part.  She’s also the younger sister to Jake English.  She’s incredibly dangerous with this huge white dog that acts like her personal body guard.  She’s a pretty big name on the black market and she makes some pretty good money, a lot more than you do.

Maybe in another life.  Because currently in this life your brothers sound like they’re about to rip each other’s throats out.  At first you hesitate going down the stairs to stop your brothers.

Wait, did Bro just yell?  Shit, that’s your cue.  You walk down the stairs as casually as you can without giving away the fact you eavesdropped on them.  They glance at you and regain their composure in less than a second.  They seem too mad to notice that you were eavesdropping on them.

“Well, are we going to go to work or stand here all day like dumbasses?”

Dirk just stomps past you and doesn’t even grace Bro with a backwards glance.  Bro just shakes his head.  Dirk can be overdramatic sometimes but you can understand why he’s mad, everyone in your family knows how much Dirk hates English.  Hell, Dirk won’t even say the bastard’s name!

Oh well, he’ll be better by lunchtime, if not, then by dinner.  You swear to God, Dirk’s still going through his angsty teenage phrase.  Or he’s secretly a girl and always on his period.  But you highly doubt that he is secretly a girl, after all, you two are twins.

You snap back to reality as you hear the door slam behind Dirk.  Bro mutters something under his breath, you look at him for an explanation, but all you get is a shrug and a slap on the shoulder as Bro walks out after Dirk.  Sometimes you wish your family was normal.  But then again, you really don’t.

You walk out the front door to find Dirk and Bro already in the car.  You shoot them both an unimpressed look when you notice that Dirk is sitting in the backseat behind the empty passenger seat.

“You’re both idiots.” You mutter as you climb into the passenger seat.  You glance behind you at Dirk to see him just staring blankly out the window through those dumb anime shades he and Bro still wear.

Bro only blinks and begins to pull the car out of the parking space.  You internally groan as Bro turns on some crappy hip-hop station on the radio, in response, you pull your ear buds out of your pocket and play your music off your iPhone.

You close your eyes and let out a frustrated sigh.  Today is going to be a long day.

…

You and your brothers arrive to work in relative peace, surprisingly.  The receptionist- _slash_ -secretary, Feferi greets you with a smile and informs you that Aradia wants you to see as soon as possible.  Normally, you would be pretty worried if Aradia wanted to see you as soon as you arrive, but today, you’ll use any excuse you can to get away from your brothers.

You immediately walk down the halls to the “Dead Room” as Aradia likes to call it.  You like Aradia, she’s a pretty close friend of you and your brothers, you knew her during high school and, honestly, she hasn’t changed a bit.  As a certified medical examiner with a strange knack for always figuring out the _exact_ time of death, she’s the best at her job and she loves what she does, which only makes her better.

When you walk in you instantly notice that Aradia is wearing her lab coat (the one she decorated with skulls fashioned to look like those out of the Day of the Dead celebrations) and the two bodies from yesterday laid out on the dissection tables.  You try your best not to look at the bodies, it’s like you’re squeamish or that Aradia doesn’t do a good job cleaning up the bodies, it’s just that seeing two people’s bashed in skulls is not something you want to see in the morning.  How Aradia does it is completely beyond you.

“Damn, how early did you get here?”

Aradia smiles as she replies, “Much earlier than you apparently.”

You let out a low chuckle in response, and Aradia heads over to her computer.  You follow her.  She’s very pretty, nicely tanned skin do to her East Asian and Mexican heritage, dark brown curly hair, and tall yet curvy figure is definitely appealing.  It’s a shame she’s dating Captor, but it’s not like you would go after her anyways.  You aren’t really too interested in girls, save a couple that you dated in high school.

The sound of Aradia typing interrupts your inner monologue and, without even looking up, Aradia asks, “So what happened this morning?  You’re normally never this late.”

“Dirk and Bro got into a fight this morning ‘cause Bro assigned Dirk to catch Harley.”

Aradia lets out a low whistle and shakes her head before smiling, “And let me guess, Dirk’s being a little bitch about it?”

“Whoa!  Don’t go stealing my lines now!”

Aradia laughs, “Don’t quit your day job, Dave.”

“You cut me deep!  I don’t think my ego will ever fully recover now thanks to you!”

“Oh, you know I can’t cut you, Dave!  You’re not a corpse!”  She winks that cheesy trademark wink of hers at you.

“Speaking of corpses, Feferi said you had something important to tell me.”

“Yup!”  She pulls up two photocopies of two driver licenses on her computer.

“These are our two unlucky fellows.”

She looks so proud of herself you hesitate before saying, “Um, Aradia?  We already identified the victims.”

Her smile grows even wider, “Oh I know.  But since the our little friends over there came late last night, you guys didn’t have time to run background checks on them, so this morning I went and ran the checks for you guys.”

All of a sudden her computer screen gets flooded with police reports about gang incidents and two pretty extensive criminal records.

“Ta-Da!”

You glance over at the corpses then back at Aradia’s computer when something catches your eye.  _The Messiahs._    Makara’s gang.

“Hold up, you mean to tell me these guys were a part of Makara’s gang?”

“No, Dave.  I wanted to tell you that the room is made of lava.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t make sense.  John Doe hasn’t gone after gang members before.”

“Exactly!  Also, John Doe was pretty sloppy with these two here”, she heads over to the corpses, “Both of them died from blunt force trauma but the areas in which they were bludgeoned are not limited to the head alone like all the other victims.”

You nod as she talks, “So what are you trying to tell me.”

Aradia flashes you an eerie grin, “I don’t think John Doe killed these two for the hell of it.  I think these two fellows attacked him.”

You nod, it makes sense, honestly, why else would they be dead?  A thought dawns on you.

“Do you think John Doe was a part of _The Messiahs_?”

Aradia pokes out her bottom lip as she thinks before responding, “Honestly?  No I don’t, but there is always the possibility.”

That’s…a different idea, honestly, but you don’t argue.

“Sooo, why _do_ you think he killed them?”

She grins innocently, “I don’t know, because there’s no good reason why John Doe would kill them”.

You rub your forehead out of frustration, today is just not going the way you had hoped.

Aradia pats your shoulder, “It’s not what you want to hear but you have to know.”

“Yeah…”  You nod, she’s right, and besides if she didn’t tell you, someone would have eventually.  You look back at her, the corners of your mouth twitch upwards in a sort of sad manner before saying, “Thanks Aradia.”

You turn and start to walk out of the “Dead Room”.  You are almost to the door when you hear Aradia shout, “Oh!  And if I find anything new, I’ll make sure to call you at the most inopportune time!”

“Fuck you too!”

And before the door closes behind you as you walk out you can hear Aradia laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So I meant to update this a while back but that didn't happen because of schoolwork. However, since it's now officially Thanksgiving break and I don't have any major homework, I will update more of this fic and "For All Those Gone" AND I am going to post the prologue to a new AU I have called "The City is at War".
> 
> Also this chapter is actually very important to plot as you'll see later on. I don't believe in filler chapters, all the chapters I write are important to the plot in some way, so if you ever read a chapter of a fic of mine and you think it's a filler, my advice is reread it, you may pick up on some foreshadowing or major clues to the plot.


	3. Bathrooms and the Pissed Off Younger Sibilings

Your name is Dirk Strider and you are pissed off.  But, before you inner monologue starts rant about how Bro is an ass for assigning you a certain case, may it be stated that if Bro had _not_ assigned you to find the elusive Jade Harley or if he really didn’t want you to, you probably would have taken on the case anyways.

No, you won’t do it just to spite Bro.  You actually have reasons as to why you would want to find Jade Harley.  First off, you would do it to spite _him_ , after all _he_ is her older brother.  Also, you kind of admire Harley, she has managed to successfully evade the police for over four years without a single sighting of her which is rather impressive.  On a side note, you’re not the only person in your family who respects Harley, Dave at least respects her paycheck and Rose, well, Rose has respect for almost all criminals.  And lastly, you would want to catch Harley so you could have peace of mind knowing you stopped a family of criminals, sure Harley isn’t as bad as _him_ but she could have been and she might be.

But, despite all these reasons, you still got mad at Bro for assigning you the case.  Why did you get mad?  Because the very last person to ever see Jade Harley before she vanished was English.  That means the only person who you can interview and get information from is English.  That is last person you ever want to see again.

That is why you are pissed off at Bro.  Bro obviously knows why you’re mad and that’s he didn’t put up as much of a fight as he normally does about these things, and Dave probably thinks that you’re overreacting and is probably really annoyed at both you and Bro.  But he can suck it up, you really don’t care at this point.

Besides, you have a massive headache and don’t want to deal with anyone.  And that is how you ended up in the back stall of the guy’s bathroom with the lights off and taking medicine for your headache.  Inside yourself, you know you can’t stay in the bathrooms forever without Dave probably finding exactly where you are because of the fact you two are twins and have that weird twin telepathy thing.  Granted, you were born a week before Dave and the doctors still have no idea why you were born early because nothing was obviously wrong with you.

You sigh and run your hands through your hair before checking the time; it’s barely ten o’clock in the morning and your lunch isn’t until one.  You’re about to put your phone away when it’s chimes to let you know you received a text.  It’s from Dave.

 _dude where the fuck_ _are you? dont tell me_ _youre hiding in_ _the_ _bathrooms_

You only type one word in response before hitting send.

_Creep_

Your phone chimes almost immediately after your message sends.

_hurry up. rose is here she wants to talk with about something. and I swear if you dont hurry up I am going to duct tape your lousy ass to the roof in your sleep._

Now that’s odd, Rose hardly ever comes to the station on her own free will so this must be important.  But it can wait a little longer if it means she can annoy Dave more, you don’t care if he goes through on his threat to duct tape you to the roof.  Besides, even if he tried to pull that, Bro would probably stop him.

You make a point of moving as slowly as you can as you exit the bathroom, only to be greeted with the sound of someone walking, no, _stomping_ down the hall towards the restrooms.  It’s Dave, most likely.  It could be Rose, you never know, that girl is full of surprises.

Unluckily for you, it’s a very annoyed/pissed off Dave whom, you can tell, is glaring at you from behind his shades.  You smirk as he moves closer and open your mouth to throw some witty banter at him but he cuts you off before you do.

“Before you start spewing bullshit about why you locked your worthless ass in the bathroom, I don’t want to hear it.  So just get your ass over to Rose before she passive aggressively kills me with her sass.”

You just chuckle in response as you start walking to the lobby.  When you pass Dave you can practically feel him seething.  When you reach the halfway point to the lobby, you pull out your phone and reply to Dave’s threat with a simple sentence.

_We don't have any duct tape_

Feeling vaguely satisfied (and smug) with your reply, you put your phone on silent, and make your way down the halls to the lobby.

 

 

* * *

Your name is Rose Lalonde and you swear to God all your brothers are idiots.  Now there are many reasons for that but today has brought forth more reasons than in the past year.  Starting with the smaller reasons; Dave is rather egotistical and easily annoyed, no surprise there, but today it was much worse.  Normally he can withstand your sarcasm and fire comebacks at you like no tomorrow, today, however, he became annoyed at you right away and just left to find Dirk without even saying a single comeback.  You already know why he’s so irritated.

Bro had called you earlier to explain why the boys were going to be even bigger douche bags than they normally are.  At first you gave him the benefit of the doubt as he is a Strider and the Striders are known for their love and use of extended metaphors and ridiculous hyperboles.  That was a mistake on your part, because Bro forgot to mention the name Jake English when he said that he had assigned Dirk a case, which Dirk did _not_ want.  At least, you think he didn’t want the case, because logically it doesn’t make sense to fight against something you want.  Then again, your brothers _are_ idiots that defy logic in more ways then one.

So after you figured out that Dirk was assigned to try and catch Jade Harley, you immediately left your work and came down to the station.  You don’t know how, but you are going to try to convince Dirk not to take on the case.  You already tried talking to Bro about it but he just said that he already did the “paperwork and shit” and Dirk was going to be doing the case, end of story.

Normally you don’t interfere with the boys and their jobs but the thing is, if Dirk does take on this case he will have to talk to English at some point in the investigation and that will _not_ be pretty at all.  First of all, Dirk hates English so much that he probably cause more trouble than necessary.  And secondly, you have spoken with English before because of the fact that he’s at the prison that you work at.

He’s… _interesting_ to say the least, he was completely civil, a gentleman even, he wasn’t rude and he didn’t argue with you.  He was a little sarcastic at times but he seemed very smart.  He answered all your questions and made small talk with you.  He even asked you questions; he asked about what movies you liked, your favorite food, favorite songs and bands.  If it wasn’t for the facts he is a serial killer and in a high security prison, you would have thought he was just a normal person.  However, from the moment you stepped in the room with him to when you went home to your apartment and went to sleep that night, you were completely unnerved.  It seemed the whole time you were questioning him and trying to figure him out, he was doing the same to you and he managed to do so without even trying to intimidate you.

Since you are related to the Striders, you have a great poker face and are very good at hiding your emotions but English saw straight through you.  You know this because when you were about to leave he looked rather sad, you thought it was because that was probably the first full conversation he had with anyone during his first year in prison.  But wasn’t the case, he must have sensed your unease because before you left he looked you dead in the eyes with a sad expression and what he had said next had both relaxed you and made you even more anxious,

_“I would never hurt an innocent person, Ms. Lalonde.  I hope you know that.”_

You just gave him a soft smile and said you understood.  The unnerving part wasn’t what he said but the fact you truly believed him.  You still do.

However, just because he was civil with you does not he will be with Dirk, Dirk probably won’t be civil to English to begin with.  Also from what you observed with English, he doesn’t seem to have much of a patience but isn’t aggressive unless provoked.  The problem with that is Dirk loves to get a reaction out of people, whether he knows it or not, he does, and he’ll probably try and get a raise out of English.  English, on the other hand, seems to enjoy making people nervous and trying to figure them out that way.

One thing that could possibly happen, and is most likely to happen if Dirk does take the case, is that Dirk won’t talk at all and try to intimidate English.  You can see that happening and honestly, you silently laugh at the thought, it’s simple why.  Dirk may try to intimidate English but even you know English will creep Dirk out.  Though the thought makes you laugh, it’s also the main reason why you are going to try and convince Dirk not to do the case.

Speaking of Dirk, he’s here finally.  He doesn’t seemed too irritated but you know after your conversation he probably will be.

“Sup lil’ lady, don’t you have a job or somethin’ ya supposed to be doin’?”

You place you hand over your chest and feign a gasp, “Oh big brother, I thought you had more faith in me!  How could you say such a thing?”

 Dirk just chuckles and replies, “Can’t I worry ‘bout my baby sis’ when she has to support herself all the time?”

You smirk, “I will have none of that from you.  At least I _can_ support myself whereas you still live with family.  Shame, really.  As the older brother you are supposed to set an example for me, not vice versa.”

For once Dirk cracks a smile briefly, “Missed ya’ sass, lil’ lady.”

You smile softly in return but Dirk’s smile quickly fades as he asks, “So why did you come here to talk to me?”

Your face falls and  you reply, “You can’t take on Harley’s case.”

“Why not?”  He phrases it like a question but you know its not.

“Dirk, you know why.  You cannot visit English in any scenario.”

“Thanks for ya’ concern but I beat ‘im once and I can do it again.”  His voice is practically dripping in sarcasm and venom.

You look him dead in the eyes, “Physically, yes.  But once you talk to him-”

“ _Rose_ , he can’t hurt me, he _won’t_ hurt me.  I’ll be fine.”

You take a deep breath before replying, “You don’t understand, he will mess with your head even if you’re careful.”

Dirk grabs you by the shoulders and looks you in the eyes from over his shades, “I’ll be _fine_ , don’t worry.”

And with that, he gives you a stiff, over the shoulder wave and walks out of the lobby.  That did not go as you had hoped.  You pull out your phone and check the time.  You’re ten minutes late for your work, you only took a thirty minutes break.  Oh well, Mom will understand, she did raise you and brothers after all.  But for now, all you can do is take an aspirin for your oncoming headache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So I met to post this yesterday but my laptop and the internet had different plans. Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Also thanks to all the people who read, subscribed, bookmarked, commented or left kudos on any of my works! And hOLY CRAP! THANK YOU FOR ALMOST 60 HITS ON MY NEW FIC, YOU GUYS ARE CRAZY! I LOVE YOU! Anyways enough of that, back to this fic, you finally start learning about the imprisoned Jake English, he sounds somewhat decent doesn't he? What could possibly go wrong when him and Dirk finally meet? Well, you won't find out of a while but I must say, Jake has a way of stuck in your head.
> 
> Anyways happy new year! Good luck to all of you! Hope this year will great! Comments are welcome! Okay, I'll shut up now.


	4. Uncanny Criminals and the All-Knowing Mother

Your name is still Rose Lalonde and you are fairly certain what you are about to do is a very bad idea.  However, this bad idea will only add to the list of bad ideas and happenings of today alone.  It was a bad idea to begin with to try and convince Bro to not give Dirk the case.  It was a bad idea to try and convince Dirk not to take up Harley’s case.  You should not have gotten involved.

But, seeing as you already have, it can’t hurt _too_ much to pull a few strings.

Thankfully, Mom understood why you were late and let it slide.  Now, you are back at work and about to do something you will probably regret later on.  You are going to talk with Jake English.  This is not as unusual as it sounds, your job is to talk to the prisoners and assess their mental and emotion state, so randomly dropping by and chatting with the inmates isn’t that strange.

As of right now you are walking to English’s cell, trying to think of something to say that isn’t rather tense or absurd.  You silently laugh at your inner conflict, considering English will see right through you almost immediately.

You greet the new guard when you get close to the cell, the new guard waves happily at you and tries flirting with you (like he has since he first starting working at the prison).  At this point, you don’t even have the heart to tell him that you’re a lesbian.  He has been working at the prison for over a month now but just got assigned to English’s cell yesterday.  You almost miss the old guard, the tense one that was always sweating.  At least he didn’t try flirting with you, hell, he barely said hello to you even.

Soon, the guard gives up on his (poor) attempts at flirting and opens the door to English’s cell.  When you step in, English is sitting on his cot writing furiously on the loose leaf he was given this morning.  As soon as he catches notice of you he stops writing, smiles, and, in his chirpy British accent, greets you, “Good morning Ms. Rose, this is a surprise!”

His cheerfulness makes you smile softly as you wonder how someone so cheery and carefree be a killer.

“I thought I would drop by.  I see you’re writing again.”

“I am!  I got inspiration this morning, I’ve been writing this whole time!  Would you like to read it?”  When you nod, he grins and gathers up a pile of papers as you take a seat at the steel table and chair in the room.  He then hands you the papers and you begin reading.  He’s a rather good writer surprisingly, he likes writing screenplays and short stories most of which fall under the genre of action, and, while action is not your favorite genre, his stories are quite enjoyable.  He has written some short stories for the mystery and thriller genres, which, admittedly, you have taken home before because they were very entertaining.

As you begin to read, English asks, “Your mother is an author, right?”

“Yes, she is.”  You flip through the stack of papers he handed you, with a small amount of awe leaking into your voice as you look up, and ask, “You wrote all this today alone?”

He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly and replies, “Well the first four pages I wrote yesterday, the other eight I wrote today.”

“Wow.”  You mutter as you continue reading.

You two sit in a comfortable silence for a while, it’s strange really, when you first met him, you were at complete unease being in the same room as him, now you two are almost, in a way, friends.  You are, at least, more comfortable around him then some of the other inmates.

Without looking up from reading, you smirk at him, “So, do you like your new guard?”

You can almost hear him roll his eyes as he huffs, “No, yesterday my pen broke and he wouldn’t get me a new one!  Then this morning, he hands me a new pen and ten pieces of paper and you know what that bloody wanker says?”

He clears his throat and continues in a horrible imitation of the new guard’s accent, “ _‘You’ll only be given ten papers a day from now on!’_   Can you believe him?”

You laugh before looking up and smiling at him, “Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him about that.”

“Tell him that I’m going to stab him with the bloody pens he gives me if he doesn’t get me more paper!”

Normally, others would be freaked out from hearing English say that, but he’s smiling and laughing so you know he’s kidding.

You even laugh as you respond, “Now, I don’t know who would get in trouble for that; you, for telling me to say that, or me, for actually saying that to him.”

He laughs and again you fall into comfortable silence, but you can feel his eyes on you, he’s trying to read you.

“There’s something on your mind, what’s the matter?”

You swallow before responding, “Okay, I probably should not be saying this but…”  You trail off.

English blinks and leans closer to the table, “What is it?”

“My brother is going to come here sometime, I don’t know when, and he is going to talk to you.”

“You have multiple brothers, you are going to have to clarify.”

“Dirk, the one that arrested you.”

His face morphs into a combination of confusion and humor, “He arrested me, so what is there for him to talk to me abo-”

“He’s going to talk to you about your sister Jade.”  You blurt this out before you even realize it and suddenly his emerald eyes turn a shade darker and his expression is dead serious.

“Why?”  There’s a soft undertone of anger in his voice.

You look at your hands in your lap, “He’s been assigned to find her, he didn’t have a choice.  The station gave him the case because they said if he could catch you, he could catch her.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“You were the last person to actually be seen talking with her.”

He lets out a puff of air in a sort of chuckle and rolls his eyes, “I saw her four years ago, how is that going to help their case?”

You shrug, “I don’t know, but it’s better than nothing I suppose.”

He visibly deflates at that, “I guess.”

“You don’t have to tell Dirk anything, if you want to.  You can even make up stuff, it’s up to you.”

He looks at you dead in the eyes and with curiosity laced in his voice, he asks, “Why are you telling me this?”

You should have known he would ask, but, honestly, you don’t know why you are telling him this.  There’s no logical way to explain your reasons, you just feel like he deserves a warning.  The logically part of your mind screams at you that he’s a serial killer and doesn’t deserve anything at all.  But the ethical part of your mind says that he is still a person who cares about his younger sister because she’s the only thing he has left.  And because of this, you have no idea how to explain yourself, so, rather than say something stupid, you just keep your mouth shut.

“Are you trying to give me a warning?  Should I be worried that he’s going to talk to me?  Should I worried that he will find Jade?”

“No, it’s just-”

“Well, what is it?”

“You deserve to know, in my opinion.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a person and she’s your younger sister.  And when you talked about her before you really seemed to care and most people like…”  You trial off, worried about where that sentence was going.

But English continues for you, “People like me?”

You swallow dryly, “Yes, uh, most people like you don’t usually care about others including family.  And though you may not regret what you have done, you’re still human, you care about your family, and, from what you have told me, you actually care about what happens out there in the world.”

When you finish, you grab a pen off the table and turn you gaze back down to your lap as you begin to fiddle with the pen.  Suddenly English leans over the table and pats you on the shoulder before sitting back down and smiling at you, “Well thank you for telling me and having some faith in me.”

You let out a breath you weren’t aware you were holding, and look up, “You’re welcome.”

“Now”, English leans back and folds his hands on his lap, “I have some questions about your brother Dirk.”

You blink, “Yes?”

English smiles, “First off, about how much of a prick is he?”

“I’m not going to grace that with a response as that would incriminate myself.”

He laughs at that before continuing, “Also, how easy is it to piss him off?”

You laugh softly as you reply, “Very easy, but he’ll try not to show it.”

English’s eyes light up with a childish type light that’s both equally cute as it is horrifying.  He grins, “One last question.”

“Yes?”

His smile gets impossibly wider and his eyes seem glow with a childish cruelty as he asks, “Do I have your permission to mess with him?”

You try to hold back your smirk as you sigh and shake your head in mock disappointment, “Why are you asking for permission from me?  You’re going to do it whether or not I say you can.”

He contemplates that for a second before responding, “Very true.”

There’s nothing more to really be said on the matter so you resume your reading.  After a good half hour, you decide that you should get going.  You bid English farewell and as you leave he bestows upon you the gift of his writing as you were not yet finished reading.  And with that, you abscond.

Jesus Christ, what happened to your inner monologue?  You aren’t some Victorian poet or some shit.  You swear, you’ve spending far too much time with Dave lately.

As soon as you close the door to the cell, you notice you’re still holding the pen you took off the table.  You turn around to be greeted with the guard right behind you.

“Are you okay?  That lunatic didn’t try anything did he?”

You force down a laugh, “No, he didn’t.  But I do have a request.”

The guard perks up instantly and you swear he looks like a puppy who’s just been given a treat, “Yes!  Anything!”

You motion for him to get closer and you whisper to him, “I suggest you give him all the paper he wants.  It is not wise to supply him with pens when he could use it for something other than what he claims to have wanted it for.”  You slip the pen you took into his hand for emphasis.

When you lean away from him, you have to hold back a laugh.  His facial expression is priceless, a combination for horror and shock, as if he didn’t think of this beforehand.

You crack a small smile the guard’s way, “Well, I had better get going.  Have a nice day.”

You turn around and start walking away, leaving the guard dumbstruck in your wake.  As soon as you’re out of earshot of the guard, you start laughing.  You must admit you love being a criminal psychologist, it is very fun to mess with people’s minds.  That probably sounds creepy but it’s true, it’s interesting to see what causes people to tick.  The best is when you send people into a virtual state of panic without even saying a word.

Wow, the criminals are starting to rub off on you.  Oh well, after all, they say that in order to understand a criminal, you have to think like one.

You head back over to your office with a soft smile playing at your lips.  You stop at the door to your office and slip the key inside the lock then listen for the soft click signaling that the door has unlocked.  You slip inside your office before closing the door behind you, and immediately look for an empty file to hide English’s story inside.  It may seem a bit extensive considering you live alone, unlike Dave who has to do one hell of a job hiding the files he takes home from your brothers.  But your mother has proven to be quite meddlesome and rather nosy, which explains where you got those traits, and has on some occasions looked through your files or bags out of plain curiosity.  You usually don’t mind but, on the rare occasions English lets you take home his stories, you worry if your dear mother will look through your things.  You aren’t quite sure as to why you worry, your mother is rather neutral and probably won’t care too much.  Oh well, it’s okay to be a little cautious.

“How was your talk with English?”

You nearly jump at the sound of your mother’s voice from the doorway.  Funny, you didn’t even hear the door open.

You try to sound as casual as possible as you reply, “It went well.  His condition seems to be getting better I daresay.”

Your mother raises an eyebrow, “Really now?”

And there it is.  That undertone of curiosity and suspicion your mother uses when she thinks she is being lied to.  Honestly, you are lying to her; English has never gotten better, but that’s because you couldn’t find anything wrong with him to begin with.  You never told your mother this, you’re not sure why you never told her, you just never did.

“Yes, he hasn’t been having any fits lately.  No temper tantrums, for lack of a better term.  He seems quite well actually.”

Your mother walks over to your desk and begins to lazily glance through files you left open as she hums in a disbelieving tone, “Uh-huh, I see.”

Not quite sure how to respond, you reach for your bag and quickly stash the file with English’s story inside it.  Unluckily enough for you, you aren’t quick enough to do so without your mother seeing.

Her lavender eyes (which are a couple shades darker than your own) bore into you as she asks innocently, “What file was that, my dear?”

_Oh shit_.  You have to lie, you have to think of something believable.  Your voice is surprisingly smooth as you lie, “Makara’s file.  His records and everything else.  I figured I should read it before I talk to him later today.”

She nods in understanding, but her eyes gleam like she knows something you don’t.  It’s slightly worrisome.

She gives you a soft smile as she says, “Oh, don’t worry about talking to Makara, I’ll speak with him.”

She begins to walk out of your office but turns back around and states, “You seem quite tired.  Go home and rest, you look like you need it, dear.”

“But I still need to-”

Your mother crosses the room and grabs your shoulders, shaking you lightly, “I’m saying this as both your boss and your mother.  Go home and rest.”

You sigh, there’s no point in trying to argue with her.

“Alright, thank you mother.”

She smiles at you, “No problem.”

Your mother walks out of the room and you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.  You grab your bag and start to gather up all the other things you to bring back to your apartment when, from the hall, your mother calls,

“Rose.”

“Yes?”

You can hear the humor in her voice as she replies, “You left Makara’s file on your desk.”

You spin around in horror and nearly run over to the file your mother was glancing at.  You have to stop yourself from banging your head on the desk.

You _did_ leave Makara’s file open on your desk.

From the hall your mother laughs before calling back to your office,

“Enjoy English’s story tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look at that! I'm finally posting this chapter! Literally, this chapter took forever to write but I must say I quite enjoyed writing it and I just love this chapter. So we finally meet Jake English, now just a fair warning, he is not as pleasant as you think. He's only nice to Rose because he has nothing against her and she is kind to him. When he meets Dirk, well you'll see. We are finally getting to the main part of this story! There are three arcs to this story, The Messiahs arc, the Jake English arc, and the John Doe arc. All three arcs fit to together and make the main plot, you'll see soon my friends. Anyways enjoy! Comments are welcome! Have a nice day/night! Till next time lovelies! Okay I'll shut up now.


	5. A Break in the Case and Mr. Blue Eyes

Your name is Dave Strider and fuck introductions!  You’re kind of on the phone with your sister at the moment.

“Okay so, you tried to talk to our asshole of an older brother about English and he’s _still_ gonna take on Harley’s case?”

“In short, yes.”

You sigh and rub your temples as you lean against the wall outside your office.  You’re about to say something but Rose cuts you off.

“What are we going to do now?  I’ve spoken with both Broderick and Dirk and neither of them will give up Harley’s case.”

“I don’t know.” you groan.

There’s a moment of silence between you and your sister before the silence gets to you and you break it with,

“So, what’re you up to?  Don’t you have criminals to chat with?”

Rose’s tone brightens slightly as she replies, “Actually, I don’t.”

“Jesus, don’t tell me you went and killed them all.”

Rose actually laughs at that, “No brother dearest, I would never do that.”

“You’re right.  Mom’s more likely to kill all of them.”

“Very true.”

“So, why aren’t you chatting with the crazy bastards?”

“Mother let me off work early today.”

You raise an eyebrow at that.  Mom never lets her employees off early unless it’s a medical or family emergency.

“Why’d she let you off early?”

“I’m not quite sure to honest.  She said that I should go home and rest because I looked like I needed it.”

“Are you sure she was sincere?  She could’ve been insulting you.” you state.

Rose laughs, “She was sincere, I assure you.”

“That’s still odd that she would let you go home early.”

“Very odd indeed.”

In the background on Rose’s end of the line you can hear the chatter of a bunch of people.

“Where the hell are you at?”

“Wal-mart, I needed to pick up a few items.”

You hum in acknowledgment to Rose as Aradia walks by you and waves.  Aradia notices your phone and mouths, ‘Rose?’.  You nod and she gives you that slightly creepy smile she gives everyone before turning on her heels and walking away.

“Dave.  Brother dearest.  My dear brother are you still on the line?”

“Shit, yeah.  I’m still here.”

“Oh good.  For a moment I feared that our _loving_ brothers caught you talking with me.”

“I’m insulted, Rose!  Do you really believe that I wouldn’t win in a strife against them?”

You can almost hear her condescending smirk as she replies, “Oh Dave, I don’t _believe_ that you wouldn’t win.  I _know_ you wouldn’t win.”

“Wow.  Is there anything about me you don’t doubt?”

“Your running abilities.”

“My what?”

“Your running abilities.”  She repeats.

“Okay?”

You know Rose is smiling as she answers, “Well, given the amount of times you have had to run away in a strife with our brothers, I’d say your running skills are quite notable.”

“Ouch, I felt that one right in the heart, you know.”

“Just go and fuel your massive ego for a little bit and you’ll feel better in no time.”

Jesus Christ you forgot how much you love Rose.

You’re about to snark back but Rose cuts you off and says in a conversational tone, “So, Makara has been placed at my prison.”

You push off the wall you were leaning on and snap, “What?”  

You’ll never admit it out loud, but you are very protective over your sisters especially Rose since she is the youngest.

“No need to worry over me, Dave.  Mother said she would speak with Makara in my place tomorrow.”

You nearly let out a sigh of relief before saying, “That’s good.”

“Oh calm down, you weren’t this anxious when I was assigned to talk to English.”

“Yeah, well Makara’s batshit crazy.  That fucker literally killed four of his own gang members because they tried to leave the gang and he didn’t even bat an eye when he shot them!  And then he’s always high as shit, hell he’s killed people while he was high!  Imagine what he’s like when sober!  And he’s always saying bullshit like he’s a fucking god or some shit.”

“Wow, okay.  I get your point Dave.”

You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose, “Sorry.  It’s been a long day and I have a headache.”

You can almost hear Rose’s sympathetic smile through the phone as she says, “I understand.  I’m sure our dearest older brothers are helping with your headache.”

You chuckle, “Oh yes, very much so.”

Rose laughs over the line before asking, “I heard that John Doe murdered two more yesterday, is that true?”

“Yeah, he killed two members of the Messiahs actually.”

Rose hums, “That’s strange.  He hasn’t gone after the Messiahs before.”

“That’s what Aradia said too.”

“Is it possible the murders were in self-defense?”

“Maybe, but if that’s the case, what did he do to get the Messiahs after him?”

“That’s a valid point. Could he have been a member of the Messiahs that left, and now they want revenge?”

“I guess that makes the most sense, but if that’s the case wouldn’t he have come on our radar by now?”

“Hmm.  I don’t know what to tell you Dave.  Have you checked with Roxy if she has started processing and testing the evidence yet?”

“Nah, I’ll go ask her in a bit.”

“Definitely.”

You two fall into a comfortable silence.  That’s the nice thing about Rose, when she’s not psychoanalyzing you, she’ll listen to your problems, cheer you up, then just keep you company.

You’re first to break the silence, “So if you’re going home then which criminal were you talking to-” You’re cut off as the line goes dead.

You call her back but it goes straight to voicemail.  You start to worry.   _She’s an adult, she can take care of herself,_ you remind yourself.   _Besides, she talks to criminals for a living, she can handle herself._

You walk over to your desk and flop down into your chair.  You sigh.  Today is not your day.  You reach inside the top drawer on your desk and pull out some pain killers.  Jesus Christ, you hate headaches.  You throw back your head and swallow two pills dry.

You stand up and stretch.  You should go talk to Roxy and see if she’s started running her tests on the evidence from yesterday’s murders.  You’re about to leave when your phone goes off.  You let out a sigh of relief when you see its a text from Rose.

_I’m fine.  I will call you back later, you’ll want to hear this._

You stare at the message for a solid thirty seconds before replying

_alright, talk later._

You wait for a reply, but your phone doesn’t go off.  You start to panic but you push the feeling down.   _Rose knows what she’s doing, she’ll be fine._

You decide that it would probably be a good thing to go and talk to Roxy about the case.  You know she won’t have any results but at least you can see what she’s started testing.

You stash your phone in your pocket and leave your office.  You’re turning a corner when you slam into somebody who falls backwards on their ass.

“Holy shit!  Sorry!”

The person laughs and stands up.  They’re a head shorter than you with short (and rather fluffy looking) light brown hair.  Oh, it’s Nepeta Leijon, the youngest female cop at the station.  Now you have to admit, when she first came to the station you thought she wasn’t going to last a week.  Holy _shit_ were you wrong.  She may be short and skinny but _damn_ , she’s a scary fighter and she’s freaky fast and that’s coming from the guy who has two brothers who can literally “flash-step”.

One time you and Dirk were called in as back up when Leijon and her partner were going to take down some drug dealer, and the drug dealer tried to attack Leijon after she dropped her gun.  His first mistake was being a drug dealer, his second mistake was thinking he would over power Leijon if she was disarmed.  Damn, Leijon had the druggie pinned down and handcuffed in less than ten seconds.

From that moment on you’ve had an underlying respect for Leijon and have tried to stay on her good side.

Leijon laughs, “It’s alright.”

“You okay?”

“ _Purr_ fect!”  Oh yeah, you forgot she’s totally in love with cats and speaks in cat puns (which you may or may not find cute).

“Well, I’ll see you later!”  And with that, Leijon waves and sprints down the rest of the hall.

Wow, that’s probably the shortest conversation you’ve had with anyone today.  You turn around and continue down to Roxy’s lab.  When you get close to Roxy’s lab you hear two people talking.  There’s a female voice that obviously belongs to your older sister Roxy, you can tell by the slightly slurred words and the slight lift in her voice when she starts her sentences.

The other person is obviously male, low tenor and a slight Southern accent.  Damnit, you were hoping to avoid Dirk.  Well, you have to talk to Roxy about the case and Dirk probably already knows you’re outside of the lab.

As you get closer to the lab you start to hear Dirk and Roxy’s conversation more clearly.  Your curiosity gets the better of you and you stop near the door to the lab and eavesdrop.

You hear Dirk first, “What?  You not gonna introduce ya boyfriend to the family?”

“As much as I love you guys, no.”

“Aw, why not?  Ya ain’t ashamed of us are ya?”

Roxy laughs, “No!  It’s not that!  It’s just you guys can be rather intimidating to strangers.”

You can tell Dirk’s biting back a laugh as he replies, “Rox, we are a family of cops, we’re goin’ to be intimidatin’ to strangers.”

You hear Roxy’s smile as she says, “That’s true.”

“The only people who gotta reason to be intimidated by us are criminals.  Ya ain’t datin’ a criminal are ya?”

Roxy bursts out laughing, “Oh _please_!  I’m more likely to catch one than date one!”

There’s a moment of silence but Roxy says, “Oh and Dave, I just started running DNA tests an hour ago.”

You turn into the doorway of the lab and say, “What is it with you Lalondes and constantly knowing things you aren’t supposed to?”

Roxy smiles at you, “What is it with you Striders and constantly eavesdropping on things you aren’t supposed to?”

“Touché.”

You don’t acknowledge Dirk but continue what he was getting at earlier, “So, you talking about Jackson?”

Ah, the elusive Jackson.  Roxy’s supposed boyfriend whom no one in the family has met even though she’s been dating him for a couple of months now.

This time Dirk responds, “Yup, I was just askin’ when we were goin’ to meet ‘im.”

Both you and Dirk turn to Roxy but only you speak, “Yeah, I’d like to meet him.”

Roxy crosses her arms and smirks at you two, “I’ll introduce Jackson to you when I feel like it.”

“And when will you feel like it?”  You and Dirk ask at the same time.  You and Dirk cast smirks at each other and for the first time this morning, you two are getting along.

Roxy purses her lips and taps her chin in fake thoughtfulness, “Oh, I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll do it when I’m PMSing or when I’m feeling really sarcastic…”

“I swear to God if you do either of those I might have to slap you, Rox.”

Roxy laughs before walking over and smacking Dirk lightly on the shoulders and saying, “No you wouldn’t!  Now, shoo!  I need to talk with Dave about the case.”

Dirk chuckles, “Alright, alright!  I’m leavin’!”

As soon as Dirk leaves Roxy lets out a sigh and turns to you, “You should have seen him earlier, he was literally yelling he was so beyond pissed.”

You blink, “Dirk yelled at you?”  That’s impossible, Dirk and Roxy are literally best friends, even when you guys were younger they never fought or yelled or anything like how normal siblings are supposed to; they were always buddy-buddy with each other.

Roxy laughs, “Oh no, he wasn’t yelling _at_ me, he was just yelling in general.”

You raise an eyebrow, “About?”

Roxy makes a face like she can’t even remember half of the things Dirk was yelling about.

“God, where do I start?  He complained about being assigned to find Harley.  He complained about Rose telling him to not take on Harley’s case.  He complained about his headache.  _Wonder how he got that_.”  Roxy adds before continuing, “Oh yeah, he complained about you and-”

“What the fuck did I do?” You interrupt.

Roxy holds up her hand at you, effectively silencing you.

“Let me finish!  He complained about how you’re working yourself to death with the John Doe murders.”

You don’t respond and just look at Roxy’s shoes.  You start to open your mouth to respond but Roxy cuts you off.

“ _And_ I agree with Dirk, you need to relax!”

“How am I supposed to relax?”

“Just find something else to do.”  She stops before winking and adding, “Find some _one_ to do.”

“Roxy no.”

Roxy snickers, her hot pink eyes sparkling tears from holding back laughter, you must’ve made a strange facial expression.

“Aw Davey come on, everyone knows you just need a good fuck.”

“Roxy, I swear to whatever gods exist stop.”

But Roxy continues with a shit-eating grin on her face, “Maybe you should get a cute little boyfriend!”

You gasp in mock offense, “What about a cute little girlfriend, huh?  I can’t have a sweet girl whose heart I can break?”

Roxy giggles and throws an arm over your shoulder, “Now Davey, I know you won’t get a little girlfriend.”

“Oh yeah?  How do you know that?”

“Oh come on, every guy in this family is gay except Dad.”

“Hey!  It’s not my fault Bro spreads gay like the flu!”

And with that Roxy doubles over laughing.  After taking several deep breaths Roxy looks at you and gives you a smirk, “I’m going to tell him you say that~!”

“Oh fuck no!  Don’t!  He’ll murder me for real!”

“No he won’t!”

“That’s what he wants you to think, that way when he kills me you guys won’t think it was him.  He’ll stage it to look like an accident.  Hell, he’ll probably take on my murder case so he make sure no one finds out it was him.”

Roxy laughs, “I could see him doing that but not for you.”

You gasp in mock shock, “What’s that supposed to mean?  Are you saying I’m not worth the trouble?”

Roxy giggles, “I love how you go from “oh shit he’s going to murder me” to “why wouldn’t he murder me?” in less than two seconds.”

You huff and turn away dramatically, “Shut up.”

“I thought you wanted me to talk to you about the case?”

You pretend to glare at your older sister before muttering, “Fine.”

Roxy’s face splits into a shit-eating grin, “What was that, Davey?  I couldn’t hear you.”

You throw your arms up in defeat, “Fine! Educate me about the case.”

Roxy giggles and walks over one of her many computers with you trailing a few feet behind her.  She pulls up four different windows that display the tests that are running and their rate of completion.  She pulls up the window displaying the progress of the blood sample testing before speaking.

“Now before I start, I have some very good news.”

You deadpan, “You know who John Doe is.”

Roxy laughs and rolls her eyes, “I wish.  Sorry no.  But I think I’ve found the first lead in your case!”

If you were taking a drink right now you’d be choking, “What?”

“Okay so after Aradia did the autopsies you know how she comes to me evidence so I can run the tests and stuff, well she came with the evidence and she had three blood samples with her.”

You freeze and Roxy’s grins grows as she continues,

“So two of the blood samples matched our unlucky gang members but the third one didn’t match either of them.”

At this point Roxy’s literally bouncing on her feet.  You look her dead in the eyes and say, “You mean, we might have some of John Doe’s _blood_ , meaning we can literally run the sample through our systems and find out _exactly_ who he is.”

Roxy giggles and nods before wrapping you in a killer hug.  You laugh in disbelief and hug her back.

“Holy shit Roxy!  This is awesome!”

“I know!  We finally have this bastard!” As an afterthought she adds, “Well, we’ll have him as soon as we get a hit in one of our databases.”

“Holy fuck, this is great!”

“I know!  So I started running the blood tests about an hour ago and so far no hits in any of our databases but we have him, I know it!”

“What databases are you running it through?”

“All the known criminal records we have and so far nothing.”

“Can you narrow the search down?”

She raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow at your question, “Down to what exactly?”

 _Well, it’s worth a shot._   “All known members of the Messiahs?  I’m looking in to the possibility that these two murders were in self-defense.”

Roxy’s eyebrow shots up impossibly higher, “Self-defense?”

“Aradia pointed out that the murders were sloppy compared to the past ones which probably means that these two weren’t planned out.  Aradia suggested that the murders might have been in self-defense if John Doe was once in the Messiahs or just recently left, because you know how brutal they are if you try and leave.”

“That’s true.” Roxy turns back to her computer and starts typing so quickly you can’t keep up.  While she’s typing she says, “Changing the databases now, but it’s still going to take a few hours to go through the database and get a hit.  Hell, it might take all day.  Maybe even two days considering the sheer size of the Messiahs.”

You wave your hand dismissively, “Doesn’t matter, it’s better than anything we’ve ever gotten before now.”

Roxy beams at you over her shoulder, “That’s the spirit!”

You chuckle and turn to leave, “Later Roxy.”

“See ya!  I’ll text you if we hit another lucky break!”

You’re halfway through the door when it hits you, “Did you tell Dirk about the break in my case?”

Roxy looks at you and blinks before smiling, “I figured it would ease his nerves more if he heard it from you.”

You smirk softly and laugh under your breath as Roxy tries to pull off a stern facial expression.

“Now you better get some sleep tonight young man without your twin going all mother hen on you.”

“Sure thing, _Ma_.”

Roxy laughs and turns back towards her computer.  And with that you leave the lab and start to head towards the main part of the building, feeling better than you have in months.  In the hall you pass Aradia who smiles,

“Did your older sister share the good news?”

“Sure thing.”

Aradia puts a hand on your shoulder and her smile grows wider, “Congratulations, Dave.”

You chuckle, “Thanks to you.”

Her smile morphs to a smirk, “That maybe so, but it’s your case.”

You smirk back, “Yeah, yeah, alright.  Now go back to cutting up dead people.”

Aradia giggles and smacks your shoulder lightly, “Don’t be so disrespectful towards the dead, Dave.  After all the dead cannot testify, but I can for them.”

She giggles again before walking away.  Before you turn around you catch her smiling as she walks away.  Okay, you’ve got to admit Aradia can be really creepy but you’ve known her too long to really be worried by it.

You shrug and return on your walk towards the main lobby.  Hopeful you can catch Dirk there and tell him about the break in the case and maybe that’ll ease his nerves somewhat.  And get him off your ass about sleeping.

When you enter the main lobby you’re greeted with the buzzing of dozens of conversations and the distant yelling of someone a cop just brought in.  You feel for that cop, you had to work in narcotics unit for two years before you moved to homicide and you always had to go and pick up druggies and they were always the loudest people to bring into the station.

Sadly through all the commotion there’s no sign of your twin.  Usually you’d find Dirk by Captor’s desk talking about coding and their weird computer science crap but you don’t see Dirk anywhere in the lobby.  However there is someone standing at Captor’s desk whom you have never seen before.

Mind as go and introduce yourself.  And piss off Captor in the process.

As you make your way over to Captor’s desk you pass Feferi who’s currently on the phone with someone.  She smiles and waves at you and you nod back which makes her silently laugh before returning to her conversation over the phone.

The mystery person seems to be talking to Captor rather excitedly, bouncing on his heels like a hyperactive puppy.  It’s kind of cute.

As you get closer you can make out their conversation.  You hear Mystery Boy’s voice first,

“Seriously, thank you so much for doing this for me!”

You can almost hear Captor rolling his eyes as he replies,

“Yeah yeah I know.  You better pay me for this.”

Mystery Boy laughs.  His laugh has a little snort at the end which you might find slightly cute.  Shit, you’re already crushing on some dude and you can only see the back of his head.  Wow.  Just wow.

Maybe Roxy was right, maybe you _do_ need to get a boyfriend.  Maybe Mystery Boy’s single.  God, pull yourself together!  Striders do not act like this!

Mystery Boy continues to laugh, “Of course I’m going to pay you!”

Captor responds while smirking, “You could just be pranking me.”

You literally hearing Mystery Boy pouting as he says, “I won’t do that!”

“I would”, you say as you finally reach Captor’s desk.  Captor looks at you with an unimpressed expression but you aren’t paying attention to him.  Mystery Boy turns his attention towards you and the first thing that strikes you is just how blue his eyes are.

Mystery Boy is a good three inches shorter you with thick square glasses, messy raven hair, and slightly tanned skin.  But the only thing you can focus on are his blue eyes.  Seriously, Mystery Boy can’t be older than you, he looks really young, almost like a kid.  A really dorky and kinda cute kid.

Shit, you wanna hug him.

Wow, because that doesn’t sound creepy at all.  You really need to pull yourself together.

Captor’s annoyed groan snaps you back to reality and you look over just in time to see Captor roll his eyes at you, “Yeah you would, but you’d do it because of “ _ironic_ ” reasons.”

You fake a gasp, “Am I that easy to predict?”

Captor huffs in mild amusement but Mr. Blue Eyes laughs and smiles at you.

“You must be a Strider.”

Mr. Blue Eyes holds out his hand which you grasp bit faster than you’d ever care to admit.

“Dave Strider, the one and only.”

Mr. Blue Eyes laughs softly, “Nice to meet you Dave.  I’m John Egbert, the one and only.”

John Egbert.  For some reason the name fits him perfectly.  A nerdy name for a nerdy-looking dude.

“Cool, so what were you two talking about?”

Captor glances between you and John before saying, “None of your business.”

Then you notice Captor glance at you and John again before glancing at something between you too.  You’re about to ask what his problem is when you realize you’re stilling holding John’s hand.  Both of you seem to notice this at the same time because you let go of each other’s hands at the same; your hand drops to your side and John rubs his neck awkwardly.

Captor snickers but before he can say again thing John speaks up, “Oh, I was just thanking Sollux for fixing my laptop for me.”

There’s a second of silence as John smiles at Sollux who for some reason looks briefly confused but you pay no mind to it and say, “Damn, anytime I ask him for help with any of my electronics he just flips me off and goes back to jacking off to code.”

At that John snorts a laugh while Sollux glares, “You have a techno-asshole for a twin you could just ask him.”

You’re about to retort back but John interrupts with his eyes gleaming, “Oh!  That’s right!  Your brother was the one who caught Jake English right?”

“Yeah, that was him.”

“Wow!  And you just recently caught the leader of the Messiahs!”

You smirk and raise an eyebrow, “Keeping up with the Striders, huh?”

You would fucking pay to see John flush the way he does when you say that.  He stutters and looks towards the ground, “W-well, you’re pretty interesting.”

Your smirk grows, “I know.”

John actually fucking giggles, “So, if you don’t mind me asking what case are you doing now?”

You guess you can fuel your ego bit.

“I’ve been working on the John Doe murders for a while now, but we finally got a break in the case today.”

John jaw drops and he looks at Sollux who stares back with a similar expression.  John speaks up, “Wow!  That’s great!  Good for you!”

You’re pretty you flush slightly but you fight it off, “Thanks.”

“So, I not sure if you are allowed talk about this but,” John bites his lip and looks off to the side before making eye contact with you through your shades, there’s a gleam in his eyes as he asks, “How long till you catch that bastard?”

The question takes you back a bit, there’s just something about the question, and just how innocent it seems but the gleam in his blue eyes is anything but innocent.  You swallow thickly hoping John doesn’t notice, god, there’s just something about him that has you hooked, you just met him but you don’t want to leave him just yet.

You pull yourself together quick enough to smirk and answer before your silence becomes noticeable, “Now let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  I can’t tell you that.”

His blue eyes lose their gleam but before he responds, you continue, “Not here at least, unless I wanted to get fired.”

The gleam returns to his blue eyes and he smiles, looking you dead in the eyes.

Goddamn, this kid’s gonna be the death of you, you swear.

But your little moment is ruined by Captor groaning and rolling his eyes at you and John and a loud clap of thunder from outside.

You hum, “Look’s that storm coming early, it wasn’t supposed to hit till tomorrow.”

John groans, “Damn.”

You raise an eyebrow at John, “Something wrong?”

At this point Captor’s moved on to checking his email, ignoring you and John.

John meets your eyes and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, “Oh, it’s nothing.  I just walked over here instead of driving.”

This little tidbit of information should not make as happy as it does.  You bottle down your happiness as you try to casually ask, “Do you need a ride?”

John flushes and looks at this shoes, “If you don’t mind, I mean I don’t want to be a bother.”

 _Score_.  Play it cool Strider.  You’ve got this.

“Nah, it’s not a problem.”

He beams at you and _damn_ you need to get away from him.  He cannot be good for your health.

You nod towards your office and say, “Come on, I just gotta grab my keys from my office.”

“Oh, alright!  I’ll just wait here.”

Fuck that noise.  He’s gonna come with you or you might not be able to handle being away from him even for a few minutes.  God, listen to yourself.  That’s it, this nerdy blue-eyed bastard got to be drugs and you just got yourself addicted.  And you’re pretty okay with that in all honesty.

“Come on, I’ll give you a complimentary Strider tour.”

John laughs and his grin grows, “Oh how could I ever refuse an offer like that?”

John steps over to your side and you two start walking away when you hear Captor mutter something under his breath before calling out, “Hey JE!”

John turns around, “Yeah?”

“I forgot to mention, I’m going to need an extra two weeks to work on your laptop.”

John blinks before smiling, “No problem!  I’ll just have to tell Jackie!”

Captor just nods and turns back to his computer.

When John turns back around towards you and you two start walking towards your office, you can’t help but ask, “Jackie?”

John just smiles, “Jackie’s my younger sister.”

You just hum in return which causes John to giggle.  When you cast him a questioning look he just continues to smile and giggle.

“Oh nothing”, he says but the gleam in his eyes tells you otherwise.  Before you can say anything back John continues, “You thought Jackie was my girlfriend didn’t you?”

You play it cool, “No I didn’t.”

Too bad John sees right through you, “You totally did!”

“Did not.”

“Did too!”

“Wow.  How childish can you be, Egderp?”

John snorts, “Egderp?  Very creative Dave.”

You shrug and smirk, “What can I say?  I’m just bursting at the seams with creativity.”

John snickers, “Oh _clearly_.”

You actually chuckle in response to his sarcasm, “So harsh.”

“Much rude.”

You give him a fake expression of horror, “Did you just fucking meme me?”

“Can’t stop, won’t stop.”

You whisper under your breath in horror, “Oh god, no.”

And as fate would have it, right at that moment Dirk turns the corner and starts walking towards you and John, smirking as he approaches.  You already know what’s going to happen next.

“Oh baby a triple.”

John laughs in response whereas you glare at your twin, “Not you too.”

But Dirk just continues to smirk and John high-fives him as he passes.  When Dirk finally leaves the hall John turns to you, “Who was that?”

“ _That_ was my evil twin, more commonly known as Dirk Strider.”

John snorts into his hand, “Now I see the resemblance.”

“What resemblance?  How dare you compare me to that pitiful excuse of a Strider?”

And down the opposite end of the hall you hear Dirk shout, “I heard that lil’ man!”

“Fuck you too!”  You yell back.  John just continues to laugh at you and your twin.

John turns and smiles at you before giving you a slightly confused look, “I thought he was your older brother, that’s what the media always says.”

“For once in the media’s existence they’re kinda right.  He’s really my twin but for some reason he was born two weeks early, doctors don’t know why.”

John’s eyebrows furrow and he hums in acknowledgment, “That is odd.  And the doctors still don’t know why?”

“Nope, nothing’s physically wrong with him.  The only thing wrong with him is his personality.”

John laughs and knocks his shoulder against yours.  Thankfully, before you can somehow manage to fuck up this conversation, you arrive at your office.  You invite John in and head over to your desk, opening almost three drawers before finally finding your keys.  You glance up to see John looking through some files on your desk.

You smirk, “Hey!  What do you think you’re doing?”

You swear John jumps at least a foot off the ground and his blue eyes widen ridiculously before he catches your smirk and laughs in relief.

You can’t help but laugh with him, “Holy shit!  Did I really scare you?”

Between laughs he gasps, “Yes!”

This only makes you laugh harder leading to John leaning over the desk and smacking you lightly on the shoulder, but he’s still laughing and smiling.

When you two finally stop laughing, you spin your keys around your finger and grin, “Alright, let’s get going before that storm gets worse.”

John shakes his head and laughs, “I will never understand Texas’ weather.”

You turn off the lights in your office and you and John start walking towards the parking lot.

“I take it you weren’t raised here.”

John grins softly, “No, I lived in Seattle all my life.”

“Traded flooding for the desert.  Shame you couldn’t bring the rain with you.”

As you pass a window John laughs and points outside, “I did.”

You smirk at him, “Touché.”

Finally you two make it to the door leading to the parking lot and both of you stand awkwardly at the door for a second before John asks,

“Do you have an umbrella?”

“John, I’m not sure if you realize that we are in Texas.  We don’t prepare for rain.  At all.”

John laughs before asking, “What kind of car is it?”

“Dodge Charger.”

“Color?”

You scowl, “Burnt orange.”

John tries to stifle a laugh at your expression, “I’m guessing it’s not your car.”

You nod grimly, “Yeah, it’s owned by my asshole brothers.”

You raise an eyebrow at John, “Why’d you want a detailed description of my car?”

John’s eyes gleam as he replies, “I’ll race you.”

You smirk, “I’d win because I know where’s it’s parked.”

He shrugs but grins evilly, “We’ll see.”

You both place your hands on the door, ready to push it open as soon as one of you says go.

You glance at each other before saying together,

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

“Go!”

And with that you push the door open and start sprinting through the rain.  You’re totally going to win, you know where the car’s at.  It’s parked at the very end in the back, why it’s parked so far away is beyond you.  Literally.

John’s trailing behind you, never catching up but never slowing down either.  About half-way there the car comes into view and you unlock it.  At this point you’re soaked to the bone but you let out a small victory shout anyways.  Your pride swells slightly and you’d never admit it but this is rather fun.

But then tragedy strikes.  During your pre-victory bliss you didn’t hear John catching up finally at full speed.  You don’t notice until he runs in front of you and _trips you_.

You manage to keep yourself from falling but you still step into a couple of mud puddles.  And over the noise of the falling rain you can hear John laughing as he jumps into the car.  You sprint as fast as you can to the car and jump into the driver’s seat, glaring at John from behind your shades.

He’s doubled over laughing and finally he gains some control over his laughter.  His blue eyes gleam as gives you a shit-eating grin, “What was that you said about you winning again?”

He continues to laugh at you as you scowl, “ _You_ fucking cheated.”

He bats his eyes at you sweetly while still maintaining his shit-eating grin, “How can I cheat if we didn’t have any rules?”

You try to fight back a grin, but it’s a losing fight.  Damn, what is he doing to you?  You normally have no problem acting stoic.  There’s just something about him in general that just seems to put you at ease in a way.

Not going to lie, it kind of scares you really.

You place a hand over your heart and gasp dramatically, “How could you?  I trusted you, John.”

John snickers, “Don’t hold your breath, Dave.”

You smirk, “You know, I will get back at you for this next time.”

He smirks back, “I’m going to hold you to that.”

You chuckle before starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot.  John gives you a basic run down as to where he lives, which, according to his description, is rather close to your apartment complex.

Most of the ride is spent in a comfortable silence before John turns on the radio.  After searching through all the preset stations, he can’t find anything he likes so you tell him to turn on Pandora on your phone.

Of course Pandora starts playing one of those songs that you love but won’t admit to liking it.  Pandora starts playing Punkb*Tch.

John starts laughing, “Is this 3OH!3?”

“Shut up, I can listen to whatever I want.”

 John just continues to laugh.  You look at him and ask smugly, “Well, what do _you_ listen to?”

John snickers and opens up YouTube on your phone, but the song he plays is what catches you off guard.  You honestly don’t know what you were expecting but TNT by AC-DC was not it.

You glance at John from the corner of your eye as you drive, “Really?”

John smiles sheepishly and shrugs, “Gotta appreciate the classics.”

“Can’t argue with you there.”

John just laughs and looks out the window, for a couple of seconds he’s silent before you start hearing him sing along.  You glance at him from the corner of your eye before chuckling.  John immediately stops singing and flushes.

You chuckle again, “Never said you had to stop, bro.”

John grins at you before belting out and _damn_ this guy’s full of surprises, he’s got some serious pipes.  You continuously glance at him as you drive and he continues to sing along to TNT.

When the song ends, you look at John and in slight awe say, “ _Damn_ , are you a singer or what?”

He laughs and his face reddens softly, “No, I’m just a college student.”

“You getting a degree in music or something?”

He laughs at that, “No, Biology major.”

You whistle, “Never would have guessed that.”

John does that weird seemingly innocent smile before asking, “What would you have guessed?”

You shrug and smirk, “Something in science, I mean seriously you are the fucking epitome of a nerd.”

“Wow, rude.”

“A nerd in a good way.”

He smirks and raises an eyebrow, “How can someone be a nerd in a good way?”

“I mean you just seem smart but not so smart that you’d be boring, you know?  You just have like this, I don’t know, _look_ , I guess, of intelligence but you still seem interesting at the same time.”

As soon as you finish you glance over at John who’s gaping and speechless.  When he realizes you’re looking at him, he stutters something unintelligible, blushes and looks away.  That was kinda cute honestly.

Before the situation turns awkward, John pipes up, “Oh!  Stop here, this is my house.”

_Shit._

“That can’t be right.”

John looks at you like you’re crazy, “What do you mean?  That’s my house.”

You whistle lowly, “ _That_ is not a house.  _That_ , my friend, is a fucking _mansion_.”

He laughs softly and avoids your gaze, “Heh, yeah I guess.  My dad’s a pretty wealthy businessman.”

“Damn, I’m in the wrong line of work.”

John laughs before unbuckling, opening the car door, and stepping out.

He’s about to walk away when he turns around and smiles at you, “Thanks so much for taking me home.”

You can’t help but smile back as you say, “No problem.  You should swing by the station more often.”

His grin goes wider, “Sure thing.  See you around Dave.”

“Later,” You reply as he closes the car door and walks up to the front door of his house.  You don’t realize you were watching him the whole time till he turns around and smiles at you again.  You can’t help but smile in return before you drive away.  It’s not until you’re a couple of blocks away you see the piece of paper where John was sitting, once you reach a red-light you grab the paper and unfold it to read it.

You can’t stop yourself from smiling when you see a phone number and a note written in blue ink.

_Text me sometime,_

_John_

Before the light turns green, you save the number to your phone then start heading back to work.  Today didn’t turn out bad at all, you got a break in the case and a cute guy’s number.  But something tells you a certain pair of blue eyes is going to haunt you tonight in the best way possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! So sorry for the late update, school's a dick but let me tell you I have not been lazy this chapter took forever and a day to write but it's my favorite chapter so far because we are introduces to some important characters, Nepeta, the elusive Jackson, Sollux, John, and Jackie. I would like to state that Jackson and Jackie are not OCs, you'll see in the next chapter what I mean. Anyways sorry to keep you guys waiting. Hope you enjoy this hella long chapter, it's the longest chapter so far actually. Also chapter 6 is already being written, if I'm lucky and actually get enough free time, the next chapter should be out in 2-3 weeks. And lastly, there! I added the relationship tags! ALso I love this chapter because it introduces one of my OTPs and holy shit they are adorable. So...yeah. Okay I'll shut up now.


	6. Not So High Security Prisons and Jackie Harrison

Your “name” at the moment is Jackie Harrison and you are currently _praying_ that this will work.

“So”, the security guard of the prison cell belonging to Jake English looks at you, his eyes show distrust, “You’re here for what again?”

You swallow thickly before replying, “Well I’m studying Criminal Psychology at the University-”

The guard cuts you off, “Yeah, I got that part already.”

Before you can stop yourself, you glare at him and continue, “ _As_ I was saying, in our class the professor wants us to actually go to a prison and interview one of the prisoners.”

“So you chose the most high security prison in the state?”  He crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow.

Crap, he doesn’t believe you.  You chuckle nervously and rub the back of your neck, “I figured if I started with the hard ones first then I won’t be surprised when I actually start working.”

The guard stares at you for a good five seconds before sighing in defeat, “That makes sense, I guess.”

He looks at the ground for a second then shakes his head, looks at you, and asks, “So who are you going to interview?”

 _And_ here we go.  You can do this.  You got this.

“Jake English, sir.”

The guard’s jaw drops and he stares at you like you just grew an extra head.  The guard stutters, “W-why him?”

You fake a nervous giggle, “Like I said earlier, start with the hard ones first then you won’t be too shocked later on.  Also serial killers fascinate me.”

The guard laughs under his breath and smiles softly, “Ms. Rose said that to me once.”

You blink in mock confusion, “Ms. Rose?”

This man cannot be real.  You stifle a giggle as the guard flushes lightly when you say Rose Lalonde’s name the way he did.  It’s almost cute how he’s so obviously smitten for Rose Lalonde.  The guard clears his throat before explaining, “Uh, yes.  Ms. Rose.  Well, I’m sure you’re well aware that Rosaline Lalonde and Rose Lalonde work here.”

You try to hide your amusement as you say, “I’m aware.”

“Yes, well, Rosaline Lalonde insisted that everyone call her Mrs. Lalonde and Rose Lalonde told everyone to call her Ms. Rose.”

You hold back a laugh, “That makes sense.”  You can’t help yourself and you give him a soft knowing smile.  Apparently he’s not as slow as you expected because he catches your smile and looks away blushing even harder than before.

He clears his throat awkwardly before asking, “Anyways, may I see an ID and your student ID, please?”

“Oh! Of course!”  You reach into your purse and pull out a fake military and student ID and hand them to the guard.  To the untrained eye those IDs look perfectly authentic, even to the trained eye those IDs are perfect.  You really need to pay Sollux more for those IDs.

The guard takes the IDs and walks over to his computer to enter the information into his computer’s log.  While he does that, you pull out a packet of paperwork.  This is what’s going to make or break you.

While he’s typing you speak up, “Also, I have this.  Mrs. Lalonde said I would need to show you this.”

He blinks in confusion and looks up at you, you hand him the packet.  He looks at it for a second and starts flipping through the pages, trying to play it off but you know from the way his brow is furrowed that he’s never seen this paperwork before.  And that’s because no one has, every page is perfectly faked and forged to look like some official document.

When he gets to the last page and sees Mrs. Lalonde’s “signature”, he hands the papers back and grins sheepishly, “It looks good.  Sorry for being rude to you earlier.”

You fake a laugh and a smile as you take the papers back, “Oh, it’s alright!  You were just doing your job.”

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t have been like that to you about it.”

You shrug but internally pray that he will hurry up and let you into Jake’s cell.  The guard smiles softly and takes out his keys and starts searching for the key to Jake’s cell.  You nearly let out a sigh of relief, but thankfully you stop yourself.  You pull out a notebook from your bag so it looks like you’re going to take notes.

The guard finally finds the key he needs and he unlocks the door to Jake’s cell but before he lets you in, he turns to you and says, “If you need anything or if that creep tries something just knock on the door okay?”

You fake a smile and a nervous laugh and reply, “No problem!  I’m sure I’ll fine!”

He still seem reluctant but he opens the door nonetheless.  You pretend to be nervous as you step inside Jake’s cell, you wait for the cell door to close before you speak.

You look at Jake who’s smiling at you but you can see his confusion in his eyes.  He must not recognize you with the short blonde wig and blue contacts.

You grin at him genuinely and greet him, “Hi Jake!”

Then his eyes light up and he actually smiles, now he recognizes you.  God, you missed him!  You sit down in a chair by the table Jake’s sitting at and open your notebook.  You sit at an angle that way the camera won’t be able to catch your face.

Before he can speak up, you explain, “Sollux told me that the audio is down in all the cells but the visuals still work.”

“Ah, that makes sense.  You guys better pay Sollux well for all the trouble he goes through for you guys.”

You laugh, “Oh trust me, I’m going to pay him extra when this is over!  And that reminds me, Sollux said he’s having trouble convincing the prison to update the security systems so he said it could take another two weeks before we can get you out here.”

Jake shrugs nonchalantly, “That’s fine, two more weeks is better than life.”

You giggle, “True!  But I still have to apologize for your stupid guard.”

Jake laughs, “Oh yes, isn’t he just the nicest?”

“Honestly I’m surprised you haven’t tried beating him up yet.  Iwanted to shoot him and I barely _spoke_ with him.”

He throws his back laughing, “Oh believe me, I’ve wanted to punch him for quite a while now and he was just assigned to my cell yesterday.  Not even Ms. Rose likes him!”

You laugh, “Really?”

“Oh yeah!  He always tries flirting with her and he’ll do whatever she says.”

“Oh my god!  What a kiss-up!”

“I know!  Ms. Rose came by this morning to talk with me and the guard was trying to look tough in front of her, it was ridiculous!  I told Ms. Rose how he wouldn’t give me extra paper so I could write and that I was going to stab him with the pens I have!”

You laugh in disbelief, “You did not say that to her!”

Jake waves his hand dismissively and smiles, “Oh Ms. Rose doesn’t care if I say stuff like that.  She actually laughed when I said that and I think she might told the guard something close to what I said.”

“How do you know?”

“Because when she left she took a pen of mine and I looked out the window to see her slip the pen in the guard’s hand while whispering something to him.  And when she walked away he looked terrified and Ms. Rose looked like she was beside herself trying not to laugh.”

“Oh my god!  I like her already!”

Jake smiles, “I think you two would get along very well.”

You laugh, “Yeah, as long as she doesn’t find out what I do for a living.”

“Oh bullocks, she likes me and I’m a serial killer.”

You roll your eyes at the term serial killer, “Yeah, but _you’re_ in prison, _I’m_ not.”

Jake shrugs but doesn’t reply.  There’s a moment of silence before Jake’s light up.

“That reminds me, Ms. Rose told me something interesting today.”

You blink and raise an eyebrow, “Oh?  What did she say?”

“Remember my friend Dirk Strider?”

You snort and reply with your voice dripping in sarcasm, “Oh yes.  I remember him very well.”

Jake grins, “Guess who’s case he’s been assigned.”

You giggle knowingly, “I have _no_ idea!”

His grin widens, “And guess who he has to interview to try and get information.”

You gasp, “You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m completely serious.”

You look at Jake closely and smirk, “Something tells me that you didn’t take this too well when Ms. Rose told you this.  And let me guess when Dirk Strider comes over to speak with you you’re going to try and freak him out, aren’t you?”

“Maybe, then maybe he’ll drop the case.”

You stare at him sternly, “Jake, I can take care of myself.  I’ve been taking care of myself for four years now without any incidents.”

He pouts at your response.  But you smile softly, “But I didn’t say you couldn’t freak him out a little bit.”

His eyes light up, “You’re letting me?”

“Jake!  He arrested you and got you locked in this stupid place!  Of course I’m letting you freak him out!  Give him nightmares!”

With that Jake starts laughing and smiles, “You haven’t changed at all.”

You smile back, “Neither have you!”

His smile softens, “I missed you.”

You laugh, “I missed you too.”

You two sit in a comfortable silence for a minute before you ask, “Anyways what happened to Zahhak?  He was your old guard wasn’t he?”

“Yes, from what I understand he’s been assigned to _Makara_.”

Jake practically growls the name and you scowl.  Gamzee Makara, leader of the Messiahs, drug dealer famous for selling the drug Sopor, and for going into unstoppable rages and killing mercilessly.  But surprisingly that’s not why your family hates him.

“Hm. I wonder why he was switched.”

Jake shrugs, “Beats me.”

“Gamzee Makara, the only criminal we’re glad got arrested.”

Jake laughs before saying, “I hope the Messiahs stop going after your grumpy little friend.”

You nod solemnly, “Yeah, I hope they leave Karkat alone too but I doubt that they will because they’ve been after him ever since he left them back in senior year.”

Jake smiles at you reassuringly, “With their leader in prison I doubt that they will even be able to function.”

You smile uncertainly, “Let’s hope so.”

Jake doesn’t reply but continues to smile.  You’ll always be amazed by how Jake can keep a smile on his face.  Oh well, it does a good job convincing people that he’s insane.

Jake leans back in his chair and grins, “Aren’t you supposed to be taking notes?”

You beam in return, “Already did!”  You show him the page the notebook is open on and your grin grows as he reads over the pre-written and answered questions.

Jake laughs, “You’re still as through as I remember.”

“Not much changes in four years!”

Jake chuckles, “Very true.  By the way, I like your blonde wig but your normal hair looks much better.”

“Oh my god!  I hate this wig!  It’s itchy and hot!  I would _love_ to put my hair down but I can’t have anyone recognizing me!”

“Oh I know, but I thought I would say it.”

You beam, “Well thanks!”

Jake is silent for a second before sighing sadly, “I think you’ve been in here long enough.  You better get going before the guard gets suspicious.”

You smile sadly, “Yeah.”  You stand and gather all your things.  You walk to the door but before your open the door you turn back and smile at Jake one last time, “Don’t we’ll get you got of here soon.”

He smiles back, “I know you will.”

You nod and open the door only to be greeted with the guard jumping out of his chair and asking, “Are you okay?  Did you get what you need?”

You grin at him and hold up your now closed notebook, “Yup!  I’m going to nail this project!”

The guard blinks, taken aback by your response but he quickly tries to collect himself before saying, “Oh, well, that’s good.”

You fake a smile and wave, “Well thanks!  Have a nice day!”  You turn and walk away before you see how the guard responds.  When you reach the main door the guard still hasn’t responded and you decide to mess with the guard a bit.

You stop short of the exit and turn back to face the guard, “Oh I almost forgot!  Mr. English told me to tell you that he was running low on paper and that he still had a pen that he could use.  He said that you would understand if I told you that.”

The guard freezes and his eyes widen in terror.  He swallows thickly before replying, “Um, yes I understand.  Thank you miss.”

You almost laugh but catch yourself and disguise it as a soft giggle, “No problem!  Have a good day now!”  You walk out the door before the guard can reply.  You walk to your car and as soon as you sit down and close the door you fall out laughing.

You smile to yourself as you pull off your wig, “Finally I can take this stupid thing off!”  You put the wig in the passenger seat and pull off your wig cap, letting your long dark brown hair down.  You take the wig and wig cap and put them in the glovebox and take out the contact lens case you keep in your car.  You take off your contacts and put them in the case which you put back in the glovebox.  Finally you put your round glasses on.

You glance at yourself in the rearview before falling out laughing again.

Your _real_ name is Jade Harley and that should not have worked.  At all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! JADE! God I love her! Anyways here's chapter 6, enjoy! Also just to let you guys know I will be discontinuing For All Those Gone mainly because I changed a lot of things about it and I don't like the idea anymore. But I will be posting a new fic here soon! It will be about gods and magic and royalty and stuff, it's really hard to explain without explaining the whole damn thing. Anyways here we learn a bit more about Sollux, yes, Sollux will be identified as both Prospitian and Dersite therefore he is both a cop and a criminal at the same time. He's the tech guy at the station and a hacker, forger, etc. for hire. Also notice anything about Jade's alias? If you do, remember it. It might help you figure out something in the next chapter! Well I think that's all I have to say so enjoy! Okay, I'll shut up now.


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